


Backpay

by pink_shoes



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pink_shoes/pseuds/pink_shoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a grievous computer error. Comedy crackfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backpay

**Author's Note:**

> Written while I was procrastinating. May or may not be continued.

Technically, Cybertronian credits still existed, though neutral Cybertronians had moved to the standard endorsed by the Galactic Council. Even the Autobot and Decepticon factions used a mix of the two. 

The Planetary Bank of Cybertron still existed, too, though anyone who had ever had clearance to manage accounts was long gone. They had stopped issuing physical credits after the Iaconian mint was bombed, and indeed a physical credit was rather difficult to come by these days. The majority of CC's that remained now were digital, laying dormant in ancient accounts long-since forgotten. 

But, amazingly enough, the bank's AIs were still functional. This meant that if a mech still remembered his bank account number, he could transfer or receive credits from his friends, assuming they had accounts of their own. There was certainly nobody taking customer service calls, but the simple exchange of credits from mech to mech was easy enough even now. 

The Decepticon Empire had an account too, as absurd as it sounded. During the early days of the war, they had actually accumulated a rather impressive quantity of credits through a combination of conquest, donors, and outright theft. The Planetary Bank did not discriminate, no matter how the Senate threatened. 

Now, millions of stellar cycles later, the Empire's account was monitored by Shockwave, as he was the only one who still cared at this point. 

Shockwave had no shortage of personal projects that had somehow tangled with his role as Guardian of Cybertron and become official by association. One of those projects was an enormous database of every Cybertronian who had ever existed, regardless of faction or current status. Originally, the project had started because Shockwave had been curious about the population, but Megatron had seen the value in it, and so it became official. 

There were thousands of entries, though some were more detailed than others. Whenever Shockwave got a rare report of a new mech's existence, he would hurry to his computers to update the census. Whenever he received a report of a soldier's death, he would mark them as deceased. Some mechs might have found it tedious, but Shockwave was quite proud of the progress he had made. By his estimate, he had entries for every mech who had ever enlisted as a Decepticon, the majority of citizens who had lived on Cybertron since the beginning of recorded history, and no small amount of Autobots. True, most of them were marked with 'Status: Unknown', but Shockwave would have time to remedy that. He had all the time in the world. 

So when Shockwave received word that the Decepticons on Earth had uncovered a Vosian shuttle named Skyfire who had quickly joined up with the Autobots, Shockwave went straight to his computers and changed the mech's status from 'Deceased' to 'Online' and tagged him as an Autobot. The accomplishment, however small, gave him a warm little thrill of satisfaction.

Unfortunately, unknown to Shockwave, that one tiny change triggered a chain reaction inside the software as information was added, adjusted, and synchronized. Shockwave only found out about it approximately three breems later, when he received an automated message from the bank of Cybertron stating that the Empire's account had been overdrawn.

Shockwave stared at the message in confusion, wondering if the ancient bank AIs were finally starting to degenerate. There were a few small automatic payments that were made once every vorn, but none of them were scheduled for today and none were great enough to bankrupt the empire in a single transaction. Shockwave was fairly certain that the message had been sent in error, but decided to check the account just to be certain. 

When Shockwave logged in and directed to the page that would show him the account's balance, he found something that made his spark stutter: A very large negative number. Quickly, he directed to the 'recent activity' list. There, at the very top, was the first transaction the account had made in ten stellar cycles. 

Every single credit that the Decepticon Empire had accumulated since the death of Sentinel Prime had been deposited in the account of an Autobot shuttleformer. 

Shockwave clenched his fist. Someone was pranking him. What was more, someone who was about to be in an _incredible_ amount of trouble was pranking him. 

He didn't bother trying to search for a way to reverse the transaction—he knew it was impossible, since it required aid from a service representative. Instead, Shockwave closed out of the bank's screen with the intention of performing a full systems scan and flush out whomever had been foolish enough to try and tamper with his systems. But with the bank's screen now closed, Shockwave could see the file that he had accidentally left open behind it, the profile he'd just updated, the one belonging to the traitor shuttle...

The same traitor shuttle who had apparently just drained the empire's resources. 

Shockwave looked at the file again. Skyfire of Vos. Aerial spark. Shuttle frame. Degree in Xenobiology from Iacon Academy. Assumed dead for nine million years. Bonded to... 

Shockwave did a double take. 

“What?” he murmured. Shockwave was not in the habit of speaking aloud to himself, but he did now. “How can this...?” 

Then, all at once, he remembered. He remembered the early days of the war, and the annoying new seeker that Megatron seemed to have so much faith in, the one that had risen up so quickly through the ranks after he joined, the one who Shockwave just knew was nothing but trouble but Megatron wouldn't listen. Shockwave had gone looking for information on the annoying seeker, hoping to find something in his background that would prove to Megatron that his new favorite was a self-serving little snake and not worthy of a command post. But he had found nothing, just an unorthodox scientific background and a listing for a dead bondmate. Eventually Shockwave had been forced to admit defeat, and turned his attentions to other things. 

Now, a thin little tendril of fear touched Shockwave's spark for the first time in a very, very long time. Shockwave had just changed Skyfire's status, and so the change would be reflected in Starscream's profile as well. And the census was linked to so many other programs, so many other databases, including... 

Including the program that was responsible for calculating the Empire's budget, including salaries for officers... 

...and their bondmates. 

Shockwave quickly checked the pay grade spreadsheet. Officer salaries had once been much higher, but those had been better days. As the vorns had gone by and resources became more scarce, the numbers had been lowered again and again until the Empire earned as much in automatically generated interest as it lost in paying officers. 

The stipend for an officer's bondmate was... _five hundred credits per stellar cycle?_ That was more than Shockwave made in fifty vorns! Why had it never been adjusted? 

_Because none of our officers were bonded,_ realized Shockwave. There was never any need to adjust it... until now. 

And now it was too late.

Five hundred credits per stellar cycle came to a bit more than forty thousand credits per vorn. Multiplied by the four million stellar cycles the Nemesis had been lost... 

No, realized Shockwave. Multiplied by the _nine_ million stellar cycles that the shuttle had been lost.

And that was why the _Victory_ received a message from Cybertron at three in the morning local time that consisted of nothing but Shockwave screaming that it wasn't his fault.


End file.
